


Out in the Cold So Long (I Didn't Even Know That I Was Cold)

by exalteddm



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anna just needs a break, Asexual Elsa (Disney), Christmas, Elemental spirits, Elsa has the perceptive abilities of a brick wall, F/F, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Light and Love 2020, Romance, Useless Lesbians, and Maren has zero clue how to flirt, holiday spirits, together they're the epitome of disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28273605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exalteddm/pseuds/exalteddm
Summary: She’ll be fine, she thinks. She has the spirits, and her tree, and her fun holiday lights.And Christmas dinner for three, she supposes—but hey, the mountains of tupperware in the left-hand cabinet have to exist for a reason, don't they?-It's the first time in nearly a decade that Elsa is spending Christmas alone, but despite her many assurances to Anna that she'll be fine, her sister doesn't seem to believe her. And even though Elsa mightwantto, she refuses to take Anna's suggestion of inviting Maren over for Christmas dinner—for several different reasons, she knows, that's certain to be a recipe for disaster.Or so she keeps telling herself, anyway.AU, one-shot. Started out as a response to the prompt “Holiday Spirits” for Light and Love 2020, and very quickly grew into something much . . . longer.
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney), Elsa/Honeymaren (Disney)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 54





	Out in the Cold So Long (I Didn't Even Know That I Was Cold)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Anaïs Mitchell's “All I've Ever Known”, from _Hadestown_.

It’s not that Elsa is _trying_ to avoid paying attention to anything Anna is telling her today, but the unfortunate truth is that her newly-assembled Christmas decorations are probably a little too much for the elemental spirits to handle. Or at least that’s what they’d have her think, anyway.

“Gale!” she yells, stabilizing the star at the top of the tree with a blast of ice that hooks it to the ceiling. She tosses her phone onto the kitchen island and dashes into the living room, another batch of frost curling around her hands just in case. “Come on, we’ve talked about this!”

Gale flows down the tree, ruffling the branches and dropping pine needles all over the floor, and coalesces into her cat form at Elsa’s feet. She mewls pitifully, staring up at Elsa with eyes that are far too large and also somehow irresistibly cute.

Elsa _almost_ gives in to the urge to pet her and tell her that all is forgiven, but before she can, flames roar to life in the fireplace across the room. At the exact same second, the icicle lights she’s set up outside the window decide to short out.

Elsa closes her eyes, allows herself exactly two deep breaths, and resists the urge to scream.

“Go find your siblings,” she tells Gale, “specifically Nokk and Bruni, and tell them to knock it off.” Gale and Bruni are usually the troublemakers, but only Nokk is capable of causing electrical shorts—Elsa hopes, anyway. “You might as well let Sam know, too; I’m sure they’re also up to something infuriating.”

Gale sulks, pawing at the floor, so Elsa gives her a single head scratch before nudging the cat with her foot. “Go on, go.”

The cat dissolves into wind form and gusts out underneath the door, presumably to look for Nokk. Elsa leaves her to it and watches as the flames in the fireplace begin to die down in the absence of any wood.

Then she remembers that Anna is still on the line.

“Dammit,” Elsa sighs, racing back into the kitchen and snatching up her phone. Anna’s video feed stares back at her, trying and failing to conceal a smirk. “Sorry, sorry,” Elsa says. “I don’t mean to keep ditching you. The spirits are just being . . .”

“Little shits?” Anna suggests with a grin.

“I was going to say ‘a handful’, but yes.” Elsa takes a seat at the kitchen table and rubs at her temples with one hand. “When are you and Kristoff arriving? Maybe having more than one human being in the house will be enough to keep them in check.” 

(Technically speaking, Elsa isn’t entirely human, either, but she thinks she’s enough of one for it to count.)

“As if they respond to anyone other than you,” Anna scoffs. “But, uh, that was actually what I called you to talk about? Because, well—before I say anything, this has nothing to do with you at all, I promise—it’s just that—well—”

She pauses, an indecipherable expression on her face, and Elsa frowns. “Anna?”

“Kristoff and I couldn’t get our work breaks to line up for long enough to drive up to New York,” her sister says quickly, all in one breath. “We, uh, don’t think we can make it out this year. Sorry.”

“Oh.” Elsa won’t lie; it does sting a little—she hasn’t seen Anna and Kristoff in person since they moved halfway across the country in March, and she’s been looking forward to this for a few months now. But she’s at least past the days where she would assume immediately that it’s because they don’t want to see her or something awful like that. “That’s, um—that’s a shame,” she says, taking another deep breath.

 _Mostly_ past them, anyway.

“Yeah, it fucking sucks,” Anna grumbles, which does draw a small grin out of Elsa. “I hate it as much as you do, I promise. And we’ll try—I don’t know, maybe sometime in the spring? Once Kristoff’s been in his job for a year, they’ll be less strict about vacation times. Or so that’s what they told us, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Elsa says with a nod. “Sometime in spring sounds nice.”

“Mm-hmm.” Anna hums, narrowing her eyes. “You’re . . . taking this a lot better than I thought you would,” she says after a moment. “You okay there, Els?”

“No, no, I’m fine—I mean, I’m disappointed that you’re not coming, of course.” She purses her lips and sighs. “I suppose part of me had already resigned myself to spending Christmas alone this year,” she admits with a shrug. “I . . . well, suffice it to say that putting up the decorations alone was a little bit of a low point.”

She’d managed to do it, of course. It had taken quite a bit of ice, and some arguments with the spirits about what they weren’t allowed to touch while she was setting up—but all of the decorations are now up, in the same arrangements that they’ve been in for (almost) every one of the twenty-five Christmases of Elsa’s life.

The knowledge that Anna won’t be home to see them this year is forming a larger knot in Elsa’s throat than she would like to admit. Why couldn’t Kristoff have found a job somewhere . . . closer?

“Alone? You put them up alone?” Anna frowns. “Elsa, we’ve literally never done it with less than three people before.”

It’s true, Elsa supposes—before their parents died, they’d had their mother and father to help, and afterwards (after the three-year period where they just didn’t _have_ Christmas that neither Elsa nor Anna likes to talk about these days) Kristoff had always been happy to join them. But it’s different, Elsa supposes, because two of those people have always been her and her sister.

“It just didn’t feel right to—to do it with someone other than you,” Elsa says. “And besides, I wasn’t entirely alone. Gale and Sam helped a little, though the other two were nothing but nuisances.”

Anna gives her a baleful look. “Elsa, the elementals aren’t—”

“They aren’t substitutes for real human contact, I know.” Elsa sighs and gives her sister a small shake of her head. “What would you have had me do, though?”

“You could’ve invited Maren over?” Anna suggests. “Or Maren _and_ Ryder, if you happened to be feeling daring. That would’ve made three.”

“Ryder’s always been more of Kristoff’s friend than mine,” Elsa protests. “And Maren . . .”

She has other reasons for not inviting Maren, mostly centered around the way her heart rate and the speed of her breathing seem to magically increase whenever the other woman is around. Or whenever someone _mentions_ her, apparently. Elsa can feel her pulse picking up already.

She’s half-spirit, she thinks with a mental groan. Technically, she doesn’t even _need_ to breathe—not all the time, anyway—but for some reason, she still can’t seem to get a handle on this.

“What about Maren?” Anna asks, completely oblivious to Elsa’s impromptu mental tangent. “You’re not—I mean, you _are_ still talking to her, right?”

 _Not as much as I’d like to be_ , Elsa thinks immediately, but she bites her tongue before she can voice the thought aloud. “”We’re still talking, Anna,” she says with a sigh.

“Good,” her sister replies, nodding firmly. “Spend some more time with her, Elsie! Honestly, it was a _huge_ mistake to introduce the two of you so soon before we left, because this is so much harder to do from a time zone away.” Her sister purses her lips. “Please tell me you’ll at least have her over to _see_ the decorations.”

Elsa grinds her teeth together and ignores the nickname, because she knows by now that arguing with Anna over it will accomplish absolutely nothing. “Well, I don’t know about that,” she starts, and Anna gives her a look.

“Elsa,” she says flatly. “Name one reason—one _good_ reason—that you shouldn’t see Maren at least once over the holidays.” She stops, considering something. “Well, preferably, like. At least twice over the holidays? But at this point I’ll take what I can get.”

“I . . .” Elsa stops and sighs. 

She’s not an idiot, of course. She knows what a crush is, at least academically, and she’s fairly certain that the word could probably be used to describe the way she feels about Maren. But she _also_ knows that Anna and Ryder introduced the them with the express purpose of the two of them becoming friends (“You talk to _literally_ no one,” Anna had said, “and from what Ryder tells me, Honeymaren isn’t much better”), and Elsa isn’t particularly interested in jeopardizing that chance. Because her sister is right—Elsa is rarely capable of finding people she feels like she can talk to, but she and Maren have gotten along splendidly.

Pesky lingering one-sided crushes aside, of course.

“Okay, fine,” Elsa says. Anna’s going to win this argument no matter what Elsa does, so she might as well give in now. “I’ll see if she’s free next week, and we’ll go for a walk to look at the neighborhood lights. Assuming she’s even interested.”

“She will be,” Anna says absently, leaving Elsa to wonder why, exactly, her sister is so immediately certain of that fact. “Oh! You should invite them over for Christmas dinner, too—don’t look at me like that, I know you’ve already been planning a meal for three, and you shouldn’t let all that food go to waste.”

And, well. She _has_ been, but it’s still three weeks to Christmas, so there’s no reason for Anna to assume that she’s already bought food in preparation . . . except that, well, she has.

“How the fuck,” she mutters, glaring.

“Because I’m your dearest darlingest sister, Elsie, and it’s my job to keep track of all of your over-the-top disaster-planning habits.” Anna gives her a Cheshire grin, and Elsa just sighs. “Hey,” Anna says after a moment. “Hey, Elsa, please say you’ll at least consider it? No one should be alone on Christmas.”

There’s an unspoken _I’m worried about_ you _being alone on Christmas_ in there somewhere, but Elsa chooses to ignore it. She’ll be fine, she thinks. She has the spirits, and her tree, and her fun holiday lights. 

And Christmas dinner for three, she supposes—but hey, the mountains of tupperware in the left-hand cabinet have to exist for a reason, don't they?

 _Do the Natturas even celebrate Christmas?_ Elsa wonders suddenly. She’s fairly certain they don’t, now that she thinks about it . . .

“Elsa?” Anna says, waving vaguely at her, and she realizes that she’s spaced out again.

“I’ll . . . consider it,” she says, and then another thought occurs to her. “Wait—actually, I think Maren told me that she and Ryder are planning to drive up to Vermont for the solstice this year.”

“Vermont?” Anna asks, frowning. “What’s in Vermont?”

“Their Aunt Yelena lives up there,” Elsa says with a shrug. “But my point is, they probably won’t be home before Christmas day—”

“Do you know that for sure?” her sister says, interrupting her.

Elsa frowns. “No?”

“Well, you could at least _ask_ ,” Anna groans. “Please, Elsa, you deserve to be happy at this time of year.” She frowns. “Actually, you deserve to be happy at _all_ times of the year, but this one especially—it’s Christmas, everyone should be extra happy at Christmas! Plus your birthday, even though I know you’re going to say you want to spend it alone like always—”

“I _am_ happy,” Elsa protests, and it’s not entirely a lie. She spots Bruni as the salamander skitters into the room, the flames on the top of his head forming the shape of a bright orange Santa hat, and she presses the button to flip the camera so Anna can see him, too. “See? I’ve got festive spirits to cheer me up.”

“Oh, he’s adorable!” Anna squeals. Then she narrows her eyes. “But still not a substitute for real people.” 

When Elsa hums noncommittally and doesn’t reply, Anna seems to realize that she won’t be getting anything else out of her today.

“Fine, fine,” she sighs. “I’ll just have to bug you about this again later.”

“Right,” Elsa snorts, rolling her eyes. She flips the camera so that it’s facing at herself again, noting that Bruni has vanished from the kitchen almost as quickly as he appeared. She hopes the salamander isn’t getting up to any trouble, but that seems . . . unlikely. “What makes you think my answer will change at all?” she asks.

“I have my ways.” Anna makes an attempt to stare loftily at her, but Elsa can see the corners of her mouth turning up in a grin. “Anyway, I hate to cut this short, but I have to go make sure whatever Kristoff is cooking for lunch is actually edible. And I think you’ve got some spirits to—” There’s a loud _crash_ from the living room, followed by the _whoomph_ of something dry catching on fire. Anna winces. “—to wrangle.”

Elsa lets out a deep sigh. “You’re not wrong about that,” she says, pointing her left hand at the living room and coating the entire thing in a thin layer of frost. Hopefully that will put out the worst of the fire. “I’ll talk to you soon?”

“Same time on Monday, as always,” Anna says with a nod. “Bye, Elsa-belsa!”

“Don’t call me—” Elsa starts, but her sister has already hung up the call. Grinding her teeth together, Elsa shoves her phone into her back pocket and makes her way into the living room, the smell of slightly charred wrapping paper filling her nostrils.

Oh, well. There’s a reason they don’t keep flammable gifts in the living room anymore, so whatever’s inside the package is probably fine.

Elsa hopes it is, anyway.

* * *

“You—uh, you might want to leave your shoes outside,” Elsa tells Maren as the other woman steps through the doorway. She’s wearing a pair of earrings that Elsa doesn’t recognize—they’re both snowflakes, but slightly different shapes—and her usual jacket over a knit sweater. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, but Elsa _still_ feels her heart pick up the moment she sees her.

“Outside?” Maren glances behind Elsa for a moment, then grins. “Bruni’s acting up again, I see.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Elsa sighs. Maren works her sneakers off, and Elsa steps aside so she can enter the house proper. She’s pretty sure she doesn’t step back far enough, though, because when Maren pauses to hang her coat on one of the pegs, Elsa can practically feel the warmth radiating from her body.

Or maybe that’s just the heater kicking in.

 _Stop it_ , Elsa tells herself, though she knows it isn’t much use. _You don’t even get physically attracted to people. Why should standing in the same room as her be any different than talking to her over the phone?_

Oh, would that the mysterious workings of her subconscious were that easy to understand.

“I made coffee,” Elsa blurts when the silence becomes too much for her to handle. (It’s been _maybe_ fifteen seconds, but whatever.) “I mean, if you want any. I know it’s a little late in the afternoon, don’t feel obligated to take any if you don’t want to.”

“Elsa it’s three o’clock, of course I’ll take coffee,” Maren snorts. She turns to face her, and Elsa has to restrain herself from stepping backward and probably tripping over God knows what. “Don’t afternoon house calls usually involve tea, though?” she says with a grin.

Jokes, at least, Elsa can respond to. She leads the way into the living room, where she’s set up a platter of coffee wafers on the table. With luck, it hasn’t been drenched, caked in mud, flung halfway across the room, or set on fire in the two minutes since she walked away. “Neither of us drinks tea,” she says, rolling her eyes even though Maren can’t see her. “So it isn’t as if I have the incentive to keep any around the house.” 

“Oh?” Maren says as she follows after Elsa. “I didn’t realize you took my culinary habits into account when you go grocery shopping.”

“I—” _Shit._ “I buy things for anyone I might need to entertain?” It’s a weak excuse, and Elsa can practically feel the heat creeping up the back of her neck, but luckily Maren doesn’t press any further.

“‘Entertain’, huh?” Maren grins as she settles onto the recliner across from Elsa. “What sort of entertainment do we have today, then?”

“Well, it was supposed to be walking around to see the holiday lights in the neighborhood,” Elsa grumbles, without any heat. “But _someone_ decided they were going to arrive at my house two hours early.”

“Mm,” Maren hums. “I could wait outside until it gets dark, if you’d like.”

Elsa just rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she says. “I wouldn’t have made coffee if . . .” She trails off when she realizes that the coffee isn’t actually on the table. Which—right, it’s still in the coffee machine. Which is in the kitchen. “Actually, speaking of the coffee, I should go get it,” she says, and then clamps her mouth shut before she can start rambling.

“Let me help,” Maren says, standing immediately, but Elsa is already halfway to the kitchen.

“No, don’t worry about it,” she calls back. “It’ll only be a—gah! Gale, what the hell are you doing up there?”

It’s actually fairly obvious what Gale is doing on top of the refrigerator, considering that the cookie tin has been forced open and there are crumbs scattered all over the floor. The wind spirit, who is currently in cat form, curls up on top of the remaining cookies and mewls at Elsa.

“I was saving those for next week, you delinquent,” Elsa grumbles, raising herself into the air with an ice pillar. She gives the wind spirit a long, hard look. “Off the cookies. Now.”

Gale huffs at her, but steps gingerly off the tin of cookies. As soon as she does, Elsa fixes the lid back onto the tin and ices it shut. “I fed you less than two hours ago,” Elsa complains as the cat jumps off the fridge and makes for the hallway. “You don’t even _need_ to eat food! You’re just doing this to annoy me!”

But Gale ignores her, spinning into her wind form and vanishing into the hall.

“Having fun there?” a voice asks, just below her, and Elsa nearly falls off the ice pillar.

“Fucking hell, Maren,” she groans, dissolving the pillar into snowflakes and allowing herself to drop to the ground. “Don’t startle me like that.”

“Sorry,” Maren says, with a grin that suggests to Elsa that she’s not actually sorry at all. She offers a steaming mug to Elsa. “Here, I poured the coffee while you were arguing with Gale.”

“I was not arguing with her,” Elsa says, a touch petulantly. She does accept the coffee, though. “Gale’s an elemental spirit, she can’t actually _win_ arguments.”

“Aren’t _you_ an elemental spirit? Does that mean you can’t win arguments, either?” Maren takes a sip of her coffee, and Elsa just glares as she leads the way back into the living room. “I know, I know,” Maren grins. “You’re only half of one, or whatever.”

By the time they sit down again, Bruni has started a roaring fire in the fireplace across the room. It is rather cold out, though, so the extra heat isn’t unwelcome. Elsa decides not to chastise him for it.

“I swear,” she mutters, “they’re acting up more and more every day. Next thing I know, Nokk will have drenched the circuit breakers, and I’ll be forced to have a _very_ interesting call with the power company.”

Both of their eyes briefly flicker upward, toward the ceiling lights. Elsa finds herself holding her breath, but nothing happens. Yet.

“Well, I think they’re cute,” Maren says after a moment. Sam pads into the room as she speaks, actually in dog form for once—maybe all of Elsa’s lectures about dirt on the carpet are _finally_ getting through—and curls up in front of the fire. “See? Absolutely adorable.”

“You’re only saying that because you don’t have to live with them,” Elsa grumbles. “It was hard enough when there were two of us in this house. And they were always more scared of Anna than of me.”

“That’s because you spoil them,” Maren says, casually tossing a coffee wafer to Sam. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. They rarely see me as it is. Have to make sure they remember me somehow.”

“Oh, they remember you,” Elsa says. She picks up a wafer and resists the urge to massage her temples. “They mope for _days_ after you leave. Every goddamn time, it’s the most frustrating thing.”

“Hmm, is _that_ why you prefer to meet at mine?” Maren grins. “Because you don’t want your little spirits to pick a different favorite?” As if to underscore her point, she tosses another wafer to Sam. The earth spirit stands and wanders over to Maren, laying their head on the recliner to request head scratches.

“Of course not,” Elsa scoffs quickly. “I’m completely secure in my position as their favorite.”

Maren raises an eyebrow. “Really?” she says. “Then why did Sam come over to me instead of you?”

“Becauses you’re the one feeding them unhealthy snack foods,” Elsa says, crossing her arms. “Sam!” she whistles, patting the couch cushion next to her. “C’mere!”

The earth spirit looks at her, then looks back to Maren and licks the other woman’s outstretched palm. _Traitor_ , Elsa thinks, glaring.

“I dunno, Elsa, it looks like—”

“I know what it looks like,” she grumbles. “But they love me more. Trust me on that one.”

“Actions speak louder than words,” Maren sing-songs. “Or however it is you communicate with them. They can’t actually _talk_ to you, can they?”

“No, and thank goodness they can’t.” Elsa gives up on trying to attract Sam’s attention and stirs her coffee with another wafer instead. “If they could actually talk back to me, I think I’d be run off the property within a week.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Maren says. The expression on her face is unreadable for a moment, but then she shoots Elsa a shy grin. “Don’t run her off, okay?” she says, looking down at Sam. “I kind of like having her here.”

“And _I_ kind of like having running water and a roof over my head,” Elsa says, ignoring the little shiver that runs through her stomach at Maren’s proclamation. “Agh,” she grumbles. “Why did Anna have to move out?”

“Would you rather she had Kristoff move in?” Maren says, raising an eyebrow. “Because let me tell you, I love Ryder to death, but if things between him and Adrian ever get that serious, I am _not_ living in the same household as either of them. They’re practically fiends already.”

Okay, that’s _really_ not a mental image that Elsa needs right now—or ever, really. She shoves it away, wincing, and chokes out a strangled, “Well, I suppose not.”

Maren, bless her, notices Elsa’s discomfort immediately and reaches out to take her hand. “Hey,” she says softly, and Elsa knows she’s trying to distract her, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t working. “You’ll see Anna in a couple of weeks, right?” Maren asks. “Maybe she can knock some sense into the spirits while she’s here.”

The way Elsa jolts has absolutely nothing to do with the feel of Maren’s hand on top of hers, she swears. “I—yeah, of course,” she says, nodding quickly, before her brain has had the chance to completely process what Maren has just said. Maren’s hand is warm, probably because of the mug of coffee she’s been clutching, which does her no favors. Elsa forces herself to take a shaky breath, but by the time she manages to check back into reality, Maren is already talking again.

“And if you ever need extra help reining them in,” she says, “you’re always free to call me. Or Ryder, of course. I’m sure he’d be willing to help out, too.”

“Right,” Elsa says faintly. “Thank you. I’ll—I’ll keep that in mind.”

Maren withdraws her hand as she leans back in her chair, and Elsa’s brain slowly comes back online as she remembers how to breathe. _Not that you even need to?_ she thinks to herself, bewildered. _Why the hell is this such a problem?_

Even disregarding that little snarl, there are plenty of other things for her to be worrying about. Should she go back and correct the response she gave Maren earlier, she wonders suddenly? It’s technically a lie, but an unintentional one, so maybe that makes it better? What would she even say—that she was so disoriented by the minimal physical contact that her brain short circuited and she just stopped paying attention?

Yeah, that sounds ridiculous. Better to just let the conversation continue without saying anything—except that Maren is bound to find out the truth sooner or later. But there’s a chance she’ll have forgotten all about this conversation by then, so maybe it’s okay—

Elsa is saved from the inevitable anxiety spiral by Gale making a swooping dive attack at the plate of wafers. The wind spirit—who has shifted into cat form mid-leap, for some inexplicable reason—appears out of nowhere and nearly lands atop the plate before Elsa jolts out of her thoughts with a yelp.

Frost shoots out of her hands before she can give the matter conscious thought, and Gale is left to bounce off a dome of ice and fall to the floor, flailing against a table leg and yowling.

“ _Gale_ ,” Elsa sighs, slipping off the couch to make sure she hasn’t managed to injure herself. Actually, she’s not entirely certain that the spirits _can_ get injured, but Gale is nothing if not a drama queen. The cat curls against Elsa’s knee, gazing up at her mournfully. “You could have just asked for one, you goose.”

She waves her hand to dissolve the ice sphere, then plucks a slightly-sodden wafer from the top of the pile and offers it to Gale. The wind spirit nabs it out of her palm and munches loudly.

“This,” she says, looking up at Maren, “is why you don’t feed Sam when Gale might be looking.”

“It’s not my fault she can turn invisible,” Maren grumbles—but she’s holding back a laugh, Elsa can tell. “By that train of thought, I should never try to feed Sam at all.”

“Well, that would be ideal, I suppose,” Elsa smirks. “Then they might not mope for as long whenever you leave.”

Maren rolls her eyes. “Oh, cut it out with the jealousy,” she says. “ _I_ think he likes me better because you show obvious favoritism for Gale.”

“I do not!” Elsa objects, scandalized. She rises to her feet with Gale in her arms, and the cat purrs contentedly—which, admittedly, doesn’t help her point. “I love all of the spirits equally! I could never pick a favorite.”

“I could,” Maren says absently, stroking Sam’s fur. Elsa scoffs and reclaims her seat on the couch, this time with Gale curled up in her lap.

“Of course you could,” she says, nodding toward Sam. “I bet I could even guess which one it is.”

“What—” Maren chokes. She looks up, suddenly alarmed, but the expression is gone from her face quickly enough that Elsa thinks she might have imagined it. “Oh! Yeah, I bet—I bet you could.”

Is she _blushing_? Elsa honestly can’t tell, but she shrugs it off and tries to pick through the wafers for one that isn’t quite as waterlogged. There’s nothing inherently embarrassing about being a dog person, of course—Maren’s in good company, actually, considering that both Kristoff and Anna are also dog people. But by the time Elsa looks up, Maren is sipping her coffee and her face is definitely its normal color again.

Not that she’s memorized the normal color of Maren’s face or anything. Obviously.

The spirits keep them company until the sun has dipped completely below the horizon, which is about when Elsa needs to set out each of their dinners. She and Maren beat a quick retreat out the door while the spirits remain occupied with their food, and Elsa does a quick double-check of her pockets to make sure Bruni isn’t along for the ride before they start down the street to take in everyone’s light displays.

* * *

“They’re all so gorgeous,” Maren breathes, over a mug of hot chocolate on Elsa’s back porch. Elsa managed to talk her out of coffee—it’s nearly eight o’clock by now, after all—but hot chocolate is just as good. And she’s not about to turn down the chance to spend more time with Maren, either.

“They’re always quite impressive,” Elsa replies with a grin. She’s actually a little surprised that Anna never invited the Natturas for their yearly holiday lights walk before this. “Did you have a favorite?” she asks, drumming her fingers on the porch railing.

“Yours, obviously,” Maren replies immediately. “You seriously put them all up _alone_?”

“Mine don’t count,” Elsa says, rolling her eyes. “Our friendship obviously biases your opinion.” She decides not to respond to Maren’s question, either.

“I am not biased,” Maren grumbles, taking another sip of her hot chocolate. “If I _had_ to pick something that wasn’t yours, though—the one with all the stars was really pretty. And I enjoyed the one with the reindeer, too.”

“The reindeer people have the same setup every year,” Elsa laughs. “You should have seen Kristoff’s first walk with us; he was positively enamoured.” She eyes Maren’s hot chocolate, wondering if she can convince Gale to come outside and sneak her a marshmallow or two. All of Elsa’s are already gone.

Maren notices her staring and grins, dipping her spoon into her mug and offering Elsa a small pile of the marshmallows. “Well, I don’t blame him for that,” she says. “Reindeer are great already, but tiny glowing reindeer? Even better.”

Elsa grins fondly. “I’m pretty sure he said the same thing. Or something close to it, anyway.” She reaches out to take the spoon from Maren, but the other woman moves it toward her face instead. Elsa opens her mouth instinctively, and the immediate taste of sugar is almost heavenly.

That doesn’t mean she can’t feel her face burning despite the cold.

“Of course he did,” Maren laughs, as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening. And, well, maybe it isn’t? Maybe this is normal, she thinks. “Anna chose well with that one.”

“She did,” Elsa agrees. Then, because she’s feeling more than a little frazzled and she doesn’t want to pursue this topic _too_ much further— “Would you keep a reindeer? If you could have one as a pet, or something?”

Maren stands up straighter, eyes flashing. “In a heartbeat,” she says. “I’d keep a whole herd of them, if I could.” She bites her lip and grins, which kind of makes Elsa want to melt into a puddle and die, but this is _not_ the time. “It’s something Ryder and I have talked about, actually.”

“What—seriously?” Elsa says. “Having your own reindeer?”

“Well, not quite,” Maren says, laughing. “But there are conservation websites and such where you can ‘adopt’ a reindeer—you pay them some money for habitat conservation or the like, and they’ll send you a certificate of adoption and a couple of photos. It’s cute.”

Elsa smiles. “Oh, of course,” she says. “I think I’ve heard Kristoff talking about those, too. Did you ever end up adopting any?”

“Nah,” Maren shrugs. “We never really had the disposable income, either of us. And by the time we did . . . well, as much as I hate to say it, there are probably better uses of charity money than a reindeer adoption certificate. It always felt a little too frivolous to justify.”

Elsa nods. Maren’s right, of course—there are a huge number of human-rights causes that could, objectively, do much more to improve the world for people than a wildlife conservation fund. Elsa keeps meticulous track of many of them, herself. But, she supposes, that doesn’t mean the little things aren’t important, either . . .

“Well,” she says finally, unable to think up a more intelligent response, “at least you know the option is there. If you want to.”

“Yeah.” Maren smiles into her coffee. “I wonder if I could convince Ryder to make us a reindeer light display of our own. We probably have enough unused strings of those icicle lights.”

“I’m certain Ryder would jump at the chance,” Elsa says. “But given his artistic talent, I’m not sure a light display is the sort of thing you’d want to trust him with.”

Maren winces. “Probably not,” she agrees. “We’d probably end up with some unholy demon icicle-bear infesting the yard.” 

Elsa snickers at the visual. “Now _that_ I’d love to see.”

“You really wouldn’t, actually,” Maren warns her. “If it’s anything like the art capstone project he made back in high school—well, let’s just leave it at ‘terrifying’ and never mention it again.”

“Ryder painted a demon bear for an art project?” Elsa asks, intrigued. This is a story she hasn’t heard before, from either Kristoff or Anna.

“Sculpted,” Maren corrects her. “It might have been less nightmarish if he’d decided to go the painting route, but no—he’d never taken a sculpting class before, mind you, and he decided that his final project was going to be a baby reindeer. The end result was . . . monstrous.” Maren visibly shudders, but Elsa can’t tell if it’s from the cold or for effect.

“ _Please_ tell me you have pictures of this,” Elsa says, grinning. She scoots closer to Maren and peers over her shoulder as the other woman sighs and digs out her phone. “You do have pictures!”

“If I have nightmares tonight, I’m blaming you,” Maren grumbles. But she unlocks her phone anyway and opens up a cloud photo storage app. “Let me see if I can remember the year . . .”

Elsa leans further over her shoulder, deliberately ignoring the way her palms start to feel sweaty at the proximity. It’s the hot chocolate mug she’s holding, she tells herself, just the mug—as if she’d ever believe that.

Maren scrolls through several years’ worth of photos before she makes a strangled noise and selects one for Elsa to look at. “Here,” she says, holding up a picture of what is quite possibly the most hideous reindeer Elsa has ever seen. “Look upon it and . . . I don’t know, weep? That sounds like an appropriate reaction.”

Whatever criticism Elsa was prepared to level simply dies in her throat. _Monstrous_ is—well, it’s an apt descriptor, but at the same time, it feels like not nearly enough. The animal is definitely more bear than reindeer, with its short stubby legs and snout, but even beyond that . . . 

“Why are its eyes _red_?” Elsa asks. Maren cackles, but whether it’s from terror or delight, Elsa isn’t sure.

“I have absolutely no idea,” she wheezes, “I’d tell you to ask Ryder, but he doesn’t know I still have pictures of this—but I mean, holy fuck, isn’t it awful?”

“‘Awful’ is . . . an understatement,” Elsa says slowly. “I have to say, I’m _very_ curious what a reindeer light display of his would look like. Almost curious enough to ask him to make one.”

“Under _no_ circumstances,” Maren says immediately. She tries to fix Elsa with a look, but the two of them are too close together—Elsa pulls back, blushing. “If I have to spend the rest of December with a model in my yard that looks _half_ this demonic, I’m moving out. Immediately.”

“Fine, fine,” Elsa laughs. “I won’t ask him. He—” She stops, shaking her head slowly. “Actually, sorry, can I see that again? There’s no way it’s _that_ bad—”

It _is_ that bad, however—a fact that’s confirmed as soon as Elsa takes another look at the picture. “My God,” she mutters, unable to form a coherent sentence. “That’s—just— _wow_.”

“You can say that again,” Maren snickers. “I mean, I thought _my_ piece for that class was bad, but then I saw his—”

“You did sculpture in high school, too?” Elsa interrupts her, and Maren freezes. “Oh, now I have to see yours.”

“Absolutely not!” Maren says, flushing crimson and locking her phone. “It’s not as bad as _this_ , but it’s still awful, Elsa. I was seventeen!”

“Please?” Elsa says, sending her best smile in Maren’s direction. “I’ll send you home with an entire tin of the chocolate wafers.”

Maren regards her carefully. “A brand-new tin?” she asks. “Unopened?”

“Brand-new,” Elsa promises. “Well, assuming Gale didn’t get into it while we were out.”

“Fine,” Maren sighs, unlocking her phone again. “But _only_ for you, and I’m reminding you again that I was _seventeen_ , so you’re not allowed to judge me for this. I’m serious.”

She scrolls through her photos, still blushing faintly. Elsa leans in eagerly over Maren’s shoulder as she goes, unable to keep the grin from spreading across her face.

* * *

The image of Anna on Elsa’s phone stares up at her, unmoving. Elsa taps the screen to make sure the connection hasn’t dropped, then slowly waves her hand in front of her camera. “Anna?” she says, and her sister jumps.

“Sorry,” Anna says, blinking, “but hold on for a minute while I get this straight.” Her sister pauses, taking a deep breath. “So,” she says, “ _not only_ has Honeymaren _not_ been invited to Christmas dinner—which I _explicitly_ instructed you to do, by the way—but she is also, somehow, under the fucking impression that _Kristoff and I_ will be there?”

“That—um, that about sums it up,” Elsa nods. “But we had a pleasant time looking at lights, at least?”

“What,” Anna mumbles under her breath, “the _fuck_ , Elsa.”

“Okay, it wasn’t _exactly_ my fault,” Elsa protests. “And I never promised you I’d invite her for dinner, only that I’d think about it—”

Anna doesn’t let her finish. “Okay,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Okay, I think we can still salvage this. Honest mistake, right? I can just call her up myself, explain the circumstances—”

“No!” Elsa shouts immediately. “No, you can’t, she’ll think I lied to her!”

“You _did_ lie to her!”

“Not on purpose!” Elsa buries her face in her hands, and on the other end of the line, Anna goes silent. Fuck, this is a mess.

“Elsa,” her sister says, and Elsa does _not_ appreciate the suspiciousness that’s wormed its way into her voice. “Do you mind walking me through _exactly_ what happened in this conversation of yours? Just to, you know, satisfy my curiosity.”

“All right,” Elsa says slowly. She’s not exactly sure what her sister think’s she’ll get out of this interrogation, but it can’t hurt to humor her, right? “We were chatting about the spirits, I think,” she says. “Mostly about the way they’ve been . . . misbehaving, lately. And then the topic of you and Kristoff coming home came up . . .”

Elsa trails off, suddenly aware of _exactly_ what Anna might be able to pull out of this line of questioning. Her sister is always one for the little details, and sure enough— “So, what?” Anna says. “You just up and told her that we’d be back for Christmas?”

“No,” Elsa mutters, wondering if Anna can see the heat spreading across her face. “She mentioned that you might be able to calm the spirits down when you got back, and I—well, I just agreed with her.”

“Mm-hmm,” Anna says, smirking. “And why did you do that, may I ask?”

Elsa grinds her teeth together. “I was—distracted?”

“By what, exactly?”

She could lie, Elsa knows. There are plenty of distracting things that exist in the van Arendelle household—four elemental spirits, to name a few, plus everything that goes on in a normal home on top of that. But her track record of successfully lying to Anna is . . . not the greatest, to put it generously. And Elsa can tell that her sister already knows something’s up.

“Actually,” Elsa says, blushing fiercely, “now that we’ve come to it, I’d rather not say.”

Anna regards her for a moment. “Uh-huh. I thought so.”

If Elsa didn’t like the suspicion in her tone a few minutes ago, she _definitely_ doesn’t like the barely-disguised glee that she hears in it now. “What do you mean, you thought so?”

“Nothing! Nothing,” Anna says, but her video feed pauses as she lifts her phone—presumably to send a text to someone. “Now, I’m just spitballing here, but did your distraction maybe have something to do with a certain person you were talking to at the time?”

She’s the perfect model of innocence as she speaks, which is as infuriating as it is impressive. “No,” Elsa lies, just to spite her.

Anna’s video feed returns for a moment, just long enough for Elsa to see the flat look her sister gives her, and then vanishes again. “You can’t lie to me, Elsa,” she sing-songs. “And don’t worry, I’ve already learned everything I need to know. Which is actually quite a lot, since you seem to enjoy making things _very_ difficult for the rest of us.”

Elsa is almost afraid of asking what the hell that’s supposed to mean, so she opts for a different tack instead. “Anna,” she says slowly, “who are you texting right now?”

“Ryder,” her sister answers primly. “He’s giving me all the juicy details on what happened between you and Maren last night—”

“Nothing happened!” Elsa shouts quickly. “ _Nothing happened_ , Anna!”

“Ah, there it is.” Anna’s video returns, for good this time. “Don’t think I don’t recognize that panic in your voice. God, it’s about time, too.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Anna gives her a look. “You have a thing for Honeymaren.”

Blind panic is the first—really, the only—thing that courses through Elsa’s system. “I do not!” she shouts, far too forcefully and too loudly to be believable. “Why—what would make you think that?”

Her voice is also several octaves too high, and if Anna hasn’t noticed then Elsa will literally eat the icicle lights hanging outside the house.

“Elsa,” her sister says flatly.

“What?”

“You know what.” Anna tilts her chin up and glares, stretching out the silence between them. Well, two can play at that game, Elsa thinks—she’s always been better than Anna at silences, mostly because Anna has some sort of compulsive need to fill them with words. But the pause that ensues is far more awkward than usual, and Elsa _really_ doesn’t do well under the pressure of people staring at her, not to mention—

“Fine,” she groans, slamming her phone down on the table. “I have a—a thing. A crush. Involving Maren. Are you happy now?”

“Absolutely joyful,” Anna says, wearing a shit-eating grin. “I’ve suspected it for a while now, by the way, I just needed you to confirm it—oh, and you should know that I haven’t actually been texting Ryder. All of your secrets are safe. For now.”

Elsa gapes. “You—you liar!” she shouts, briefly wondering if it’s possible to project her ice powers through the call and freeze Anna solid where she stands. Then she decides that even if it was, she’d probably regret it in a couple days. “Who _have_ you been texting, then?”

“No one,” Anna says, once again the spitting image of innocence. Elsa gnashes her teeth together.

“You’re the worst,” she hisses. “The absolute worst, I’ll have you know. You were _pretending_ to text Ryder to manipulate me into admitting that I—that—agh!”

“See?” The grin on Anna’s face _is_ insufferable, Elsa decides. “You can’t even say it unless I’m actively trying to drag it out of you! If I left you to your own devices, we’d have been, like, eighty years old before you managed to admit it on your own.”

She’s not wrong, Elsa thinks, but considering that she and Maren are _friends_ and how awful it would be if Elsa’s feelings managed to mess that up—perhaps, she thinks, not admitting it would have been for the better. Because now that she’s said it out loud—now that it’s _real_ —she’s not going to be able to push it back down.

 _Conceal, don’t feel_ , some traitorous part of her mind whispers. Elsa grits her teeth and shoves it away. She’s _over_ that mantra. She doesn’t need it anymore—really, it was only ever hurting her in the first place.

But, she realizes suddenly, isn’t that what she’s been doing so far with this whole crush thing?

Anna’s voice breaks into her train of thought, and she realizes that her sister’s been talking for a few seconds now. “—definitely have a shot at this,” she’s saying as Elsa blinks and tunes back into reality. “So to start, I’ll drop a couple hints to Ryder that Kristoff and I are staying in Wisconsin for the holidays, and then—”

“No,” Elsa says, coming to a decision. She can deal with this _and_ not jeopardize the friendship she’s built, if she plays her cards right. “No, Anna, we’re not doing anything about this.”

“Why not?” her sister frowns. “I’ve seen the way you talk about her, Elsa—I mean, _heard_ the way you talk about her, which is basically the same thing, but anyway—what’s wrong with giving it a chance?”

A good dozen answers immediately spring to mind— _Because she probably doesn’t feel the same way. Because I’m ace, and I know for a fact that she’s not. Because she’s the best friend I’ve made in years, and losing that would hurt so much more than never trying for something else._

All excellent answers, really, but the only thing she can get her mouth to say is, “Because—just—uh, because?”

As justifications go, it’s. Certainly not her best.

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna go ahead and overrule that,” Anna says, rolling her eyes. “So anyway, the plan is—”

“Anna, please, I’m begging you,” Elsa groans. “Stay out of this. I can handle it by myself, all right? I just—I need a couple days—”

Anna sighs. “You know as well as I do that a couple days is going to turn into a couple weeks. And then months, and then—” Elsa squeezes her eyes shut, trying her hardest to control her breathing, and tunes her sister out. She needs a way out of this, something even Anna won’t be able to argue against . . .

“I’m invoking the Favor.”

Midsentence, Anna careens to a stop. “You’re _what_?”

“You heard me.” Elsa meets Anna’s eyes, which is much easier said than done, considering the fact that this is a video call. “I’m invoking the Favor. The one from the Olaf debacle?”

Anna grimaces. “You’ve sat on this for four fucking years,” she says, “and you decide to call it in _now_?”

“Those were the terms.” Her sister purses her lips, but doesn’t object.

“All right, fine,” Anna sighs, once it’s abundantly clear that Elsa isn’t changing her mind. “What do you want from me?”

“Just—I need time to deal with me, okay?” Elsa says. “That means you’re not allowed to talk to Maren or Ryder—and no texting them, either—about _anything_ having to do with this—” She pauses. “—with these feelings. No inviting them to dinner for me, nothing like that. Understood?”

“Right. Understood,” Anna says, a little too quickly. Elsa frowns; this feels too easy.

“And the same rules apply to Kristoff, too,” she adds.

Her sister tries to act innocent, but the brief wince that crosses her face tells Elsa that she’s managed to nip her secret plan directly in the bud. “Sure, of course,” Anna says, nodding. “We won’t say anything, then.”

 _Good_. “Thank you,” Elsa says quietly. “I know you just want the best for me, but—I’m not ready to risk confessing to Maren if she doesn’t feel the same way. I won’t . . . I _can’t_ lose what we already have.”

“Of course,” Anna says again, but it’s more genuine this time—more understanding. “I get that, Els, I really do. She’s your best friend, and that’s what you need right now.”

Elsa nods, unable to form words. Anna’s tone is almost _too_ earnest, and for a moment Elsa is afraid she’s still concocting another plan somewhere in that brain of hers—but that’s probably just the anxiety talking, Elsa tells herself firmly. “Thank you,” she says again, and then, “So, um—how _are_ Olaf and Sven doing, anyway?”

It’s a painfully obvious attempt to change the subject, but Anna lets her, slipping out of her chair to go hunt down the dogs so that Elsa can see their faces. If there’s one thing she’s missed as much as Anna herself, it’s the sight of Olaf’s furry white snout bouncing toward her whenever he hears her voice—and even if seeing it over a video call isn’t quite the same, at least it’s still enough to make Elsa smile.

* * *

The next few weeks are an honest-to-goodness blur, which unfortunately means that Elsa doesn’t get a whole lot of time in for introspection. She does her holiday shopping, continues texting Maren as if everything is normal, and deals with the ever-increasing antics of the spirits.

All four of them, it seems, have managed to acquire elemental Santa hats by now. Most of them are comically oversized, too, which—while cute—does not help with the way they continually crash into the various sets of decorations.

Her conversations with Anna gradually return to normal as well, which is a huge relief. Her sister doesn’t press for details about Maren, and Elsa doesn’t offer any—though sometimes, she does catch Anna looking at her sideways, like she’s trying to subtly tease out some tiny bit of information. 

That’s just in Anna’s nature, though, and Elsa doesn’t mind too much. She’s abided by her promise to not up and reveal the whole caper to either of the Natturas, at least.

Not for the first time, Elsa’s birthday manages to sneak up on her. She wakes up on the morning of the twenty-first to two happy birthday texts, one from Maren and one from Anna. She replies to both, promising to call Anna later and wishing Maren a happy solstice, and makes her way into the kitchen to see what she can make for breakfast.

Bruni waits by the stove for her, his flaming Santa hat flickering atop his head, so Elsa decides that something hot wouldn’t be amiss. Pancakes, maybe? She hasn’t had pancakes in a while, but she’s pretty sure she still has the mix somewhere.

Sam pads into the room while she’s cooking, this time in earth form, and she spots Nokk pacing back and forth past the window a few times. Gale, however, is nowhere to be found—come to think of it, Elsa hasn’t seen her since early yesterday morning. She hopes the wind spirit isn’t getting up to any mischief, but that sounds . . . unlikely, at best.

Elsa spends most of the day wandering around the house killing time, which is about typical for her birthday. She’s never really liked making a big deal out of it, considering how close it is to the holiday season—come to think of it, she’s not entirely sure how Maren found out the date. Even back when her parents were alive and birthdays were a big deal around the van Arendelle household, Elsa preferred to spend hers holed up in her room alone, with a nice stash of chocolate and a book or three to read.

She _does_ kind of miss the whole bit involving the cake, but hey, she’s an adult now. She can go out and buy a cake whenever she wants to, no birthday required.

Just before dinnertime, she finally puts down her copy of _A Christmas Carol_ and picks up her phone to call Anna. Maren has been silent since their quick exchange this morning, which is unlike her, but Elsa isn’t too concerned. She holds down the home button for Siri and instructs the phone to call Anna for her. 

Her sister picks up on the first ring. “Elsa! Happy birthday!” Anna shouts, beaming. “How’s it feel to be twenty-six, you old crone?”

“No different than it felt to be twenty-five,” Elsa deadpans. “And there’s no way you’re justified in calling me an old crone if you’re engaged to someone just as old as me.”

“You’re an old crone at heart, Elsie,” Anna says, smiling far too sweetly. “It’s a state of mind. Your physical age has nothing to do with it.”

“Uh-huh.” Elsa sets her phone down on her nightstand, leaning it against the lamp, and settles back in her bed. “Are you going to spend my entire birthday call mocking me, or do you have something useful to say?”

Anna sticks out her tongue. “It’s not a name, it’s a description,” she retorts. “By the way, did you get my birthday present yet? Probably not, since I forgot to put it into the mail until yesterday, but it never hurts to check—wait, no! I had to go buy stamps yesterday, so I only put it out by the mailbox this morning.”

Elsa hopes Anna didn’t try to mail a package just by sticking a bunch of stamps on a box—she’s pretty sure that’s not how the postal service accepts them—but the more likely option is that Anna managed to purchase both a mailing box and a bunch of extra stamps. She supposes she’ll find out soon, regardless.

“I haven’t gotten it yet,” Elsa says, amused, “but I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Good, good,” Anna nods. She’s unusually jittery today, Elsa thinks—but knowing Anna, she can’t be absolutely sure. “And how are the rest of your birthday celebrations going—do you have cake? Please tell me you have cake.”

“I don’t have cake,” Elsa admits, “but I do have chocolates, and I’m almost halfway through _A Christmas Carol_.”

“Ew.” Anna makes a face. “Isn’t that book, like, two hundred years old or something? And super-duper depressing?”

Elsa frowns. “I’m fairly certain it ends happily,” she says—but now that she thinks about it, she’s only seen one of the dozen or so movie versions, and it’s entirely possible that the writers took some creative liberties with it.

“Yeah, well, a happy ending doesn’t make it _not_ super depressing,” Anna says. “What if the middle bit’s all sad? Then they’re just unhappy for the whole book, and that’s no fun at all. Think about the—the whatsits, um—the ratios! Happy parts to unhappy parts, and all that.”

Elsa purses her lips, suppressing a smile. “It’s about the journey, Anna,” she says.

“Okay, yeah, but it should be a _happy_ journey!” Her sister pauses for a moment, twirling one of her braids around her finger. When Elsa can’t find it in herself to argue the point, her sister continues, “So . . . speaking of happiness, and Christmas, and also kind of journeys—”

Elsa groans. “ _Anna_.”

“—I was just wondering if, you know, you’d actually managed to find any company for Christmas dinner yet.”

“I don’t need company,” Elsa insists. “Look at me right now. I’m alone, but I’m fine, aren’t I?”

“You _always_ want to be alone on your birthday, Elsa.” Her sister blows a strand of hair out of her face and shakes her head. “Christmas is different. Christmas is . . . no one deserves to be alone on Christmas.”

“Why is it so important, Anna? It’s just a holiday.” Sure, she hasn’t spent a Christmas alone in . . . probably about a decade, now, but that doesn’t mean she _can’t_. “Besides, we’ve been over this. There’s no one in town who I can even invite.”

“Maren and Ryder will be back Christmas morning,” Anna points out. Elsa narrows her eyes immediately, but Anna puts up her hands, alarmed. “Kristoff told me!” she says hurriedly. “I didn’t pressure him, either, I promise!”

“Right.” Elsa isn’t entirely sure if she should believe that, but she doesn’t press. “I still can’t invite them, though.”

“Not even as friends?” Anna says. “Look, I know you don’t want to risk anything romantically, and I respect that. But that doesn’t mean you need to stop seeing Maren entirely.”

“I know that,” Elsa says, and she _does_. “But—I don’t know, they’ll be arriving in the morning, probably tired from driving all the way back from Vermont. I don’t want them to feel obligated to make a house call after that.”

Anna just nods, like she was expecting that sort of answer, and the look she gives Elsa is completely unreadable. “All right,” she sighs. “Okay. But promise you’ll call if you get lonely or something? I’m really sorry Kristoff and I couldn’t be there ourselves.”

“Don’t be,” Elsa says, rolling her eyes. “There’s nothing you could have done about it.”

“Well, I’m also sorry for my sake, and for Kristoff’s.” Elsa gives her sister a confused look, and she continues. “We miss your cooking, Elsie. Especially Kristoff, which I’m sure he’ll tell you all about when he—wait. Kristoff!” she yells, turning away from the camera. “Come say happy birthday to Elsa!” 

She pauses for a moment, listening for something. A moment later, she turns back to Elsa, apparently satisfied that her fiance is on his way. “Can’t believe I almost forgot that,” she grins. “Whoops.”

“I can,” Elsa mutters under her breath—but not quietly enough, apparently, because Anna straightens and narrows her eyes at her.

“What was that, Elsa?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” Elsa says primly. “It’s my birthday.”

“Elsa van Arendelle, you are twenty-six years old—you do _not_ get to play the fucking birthday card on me!”

“What—” Elsa sputters. “You still do it!”

“Yeah, because I’m twenty-two!” Anna retorts. “I get to do it at _least_ until I’m, I don’t know, twenty-five?”

Elsa glares. “Oh, the number that just so happens to be exactly a year below my current age?”

“Just a coincidence,” Anna says, turning her nose up at Elsa. “Twenty-five is a nice, round number that we can both agree makes an excellent cutoff point for silly things like being able to play the birthday card.”

“Says _you_ ,” Elsa replies, feigning aggravation. Anna opens her mouth to retort, and she only stops because Kristoff walks into frame, waving at Elsa and wishing her a happy birthday.

It’s a weak victory, but Elsa takes that to mean she wins this one anyway.

* * *

It’s roughly half-past noon on Christmas day when Elsa finds herself pacing up and down the downstairs hallway, muttering under her breath and considering the fact that maybe— _maybe_ —Anna might have had a little bit of a point about the danger in spending Christmas alone.

(If she’s being honest, she’s kind of miserable. But she’s not about to admit that to anyone, least of all Anna.)

It had started in the early morning, when she awoke at her usual hour to feed Sam, Bruni, and Nokk. (Elsa still hasn’t seen Gale since before her birthday, but she knows that the wind spirit likes to go on adventures sometimes, and she thinks the spirit side of her would know if something is wrong. She’s not _overly_ worried.) It struck her as she passed the deceptively empty Christmas tree that today would be just like any other day—no presents, no extra laughter, no special cheer. 

It wasn’t the best realization to make at 8:00 in the morning on Christmas day, and things haven’t exactly gotten better since.

Sometime after lunch, Elsa settles in the living room with _A Christmas Carol_ , but despite the fact that the book is objectively a good one—and she even enjoys reading it!—the words all seem to float up off the page and vanish into mist before they can reach her eyes. 

Eventually, she shuts the book and leaves it on the coffee table, sweeps the needles out from underneath the tree, and watches blanky as Sam rolls around on the floor with their new squeaky toy—she doesn’t even bother to chastise them about all of the dirt on the carpet.

When she’s put off cooking her dinner as long as she can, Elsa finally wanders into the kitchen, where Bruni already has the oven preheated for her. “Thanks, little guy,” she mutters, stroking the salamander on the back, but the brief flash of appreciation she feels vanishes under the general dolour of the afternoon.

At least she can start the turkey now, before it gets too late. She won’t be eating until sometime past nine o’clock, as it is.

(Not that she needs to eat at all, of course, but she recognizes the importance in having a routine, and besides, it helps her feel more normal than she would otherwise.

Also, it doesn’t hurt that she always enjoys the tastes.)

Meal preparation for Elsa is usually an efficient affair—the ability to create tools of ice on a whim will tend to do that—but on occasion, there’s something about the feel of actual cutlery in her hands that soothes her for some reason. She can mince vegetables with a steel knife _almost_ as well as she can with ice, and it’s not as if anyone is around to grade her performance, anyway.

Plus, it’s nice when taking her cutlery too close to the oven doesn’t result in it beginning to melt.

Busying herself with the cooking helps a little, thankfully. The cloud that’s been hanging over her all morning retreats just a tiny bit as she works, which is enough for now. By the time she slides her tray of potatoes _au gratin_ onto the bottom shelf of the oven, she’s almost feeling functional again. On her shoulder, Bruni lets out a happy chirp and nuzzles her, warm against her skin.

She retires to the living room while she waits for her meal to cook, noting with slight disappointment that it’s gotten dark already. Sam has settled in front of the fireplace, despite the fact that there isn’t a fire going, and Nokk—in the shape of a pony that’s a little too small to be biologically natural—is standing by the window, staring out.

At least he hasn’t shorted out the lights this time, Elsa thinks. She curls up on the couch, cradling Bruni in her hands, and debates reaching for her book before deciding that she’s still not really in the mood for reading.

“Did you realize how empty the house was going to feel today?” Elsa asks Bruni, lifting the salamander up so she can look him in the eyes. “Is that why you’ve been sticking so close?”

Bruni chirps, which could mean almost anything for all Elsa knows. He leaps out of her hands toward the floor, so Elsa obliges him and creates a pile of snow for him to land on. There’s a slight sizzling sound as he hits, and then she hears him chirp again—this time with obvious joy.

“Or maybe you didn’t even notice, and you’re just doing what you always do.”

Bruni looks up at her, chirps for a third time, and plunges his head into the pile of snow.

Well, so much for her hopes of an intelligible conversation. Anna is probably right about not equating the spirits with real human interaction.

Over on the coffee table, Elsa’s phone buzzes once. She wraps it in a careful rope of ice and flicks the device toward herself, catching it with her other hand. The screen lights up with a text from Anna, so she opens it to find her sister once again asking how she’s feeling about today.

 **Anna:** hey elsie! howre u holdin up

Elsa frowns, staring down at her phone, and wonders how well her sister’s nigh-magical lie detection skills will function over text. Eventually, she realizes that she’s waited too long for it to actually matter, because if she was actually fine she wouldn’t need to spend this long thinking up a response.

 **Elsa:** I’ve been better, I suppose  
**Elsa:** Which is NOT an invitation for an “I told you so”  
**Elsa:** Because I’ve also been worse, so it’s not that bad. Really

 **Anna:** huh well what do u know  
**Anna:** i told u so

Elsa rolls her eyes and tosses her phone to the side. _Why do I even bother?_ she thinks to herself, suppressing a groan.

But true to form, the phone buzzes again before she needs to think up another response. Elsa picks it up tentatively and unlocks it again.

 **Anna:** btw i would just like to say that i didnt violate any part of our agreement  
**Anna:** so like realistically speaking ur not allowed to be mad at me  
**Anna:** but  
**Anna:** just in case  
**Anna:** sorry in advance?

Startled, Elsa blinks at her phone and tries to make sense of what Anna is saying. She’s not suggesting that . . . no. She can’t be, right?

 **Elsa:** Anna, what the hell did you do?

 **Anna:** sry Kristoff thinks he burned the turkey  
**Anna:** gtg  
**Anna:** and remember this is for ur own good!

 **Elsa:** Dammit Anna, just tell me what you did  
**Elsa:** Anna?  
**Elsa:** Anna van Arendelle, if you ghost me right now I SWEAR TO GOD

But no further messages are forthcoming from her sister, not even after Elsa tries to call her and is sent immediately to voicemail. 

Elsa locks her phone with a grimace and forces herself to get up to check on her dinner. It’s still cooking, of course, though in her current state of mind she half-expects the kitchen to catch fire as soon as she enters it. In fact, she’s a little bit surprised when it doesn’t.

“Goddammit, Anna,” she mutters under her breath. “Why are you like this?” Can’t her sister just keep her nose out of Elsa’s business? She’d been doing _fine_ before Anna texted!

Or, well—if not _fine_ , then at least _better_.

She’s not sure how long she spends pacing the kitchen, flicking the oven light on and off whenever she walks past it, but it’s enough time for Bruni to wander in and take up a perch on the countertop. Elsa glances into the living room to make sure Sam and Nokk are still there, and that’s when the doorbell rings.

She’s going to fucking _kill_ her sister.

Elsa marches toward the front door, Bruni skittering along the tile behind her. She throws the door open to find Maren standing in front of the welcome mat, a very familiar-looking cat in her arms.

“What—Gale?” Elsa says. Her brain, it seems, has given up on making sense of what’s happening—not a single coherent thought crosses to the front of her mind. “What?”

Gale leaps out of Maren’s arms, transforming into her wind form briefly to ignore the effects of gravity, and comes down right in front of Elsa. She catches the wind spirit in her arms instinctively, grunting at the sudden weight, and Gale purrs contentedly and sticks out her tongue.

“Oh, sure,” Maren says, amusement evident in her voice. “Greet the cat, but not me. I see how it is.”

Elsa’s gaze snaps back up to Maren, who arches an eyebrow at her and smirks. “Who—” she starts, unsure of what she’s trying to ask. “Wait, _Maren_? How are you here? Why did you have Gale?”

Maren snorts. “It’s a long story,” she says, shifting uncomfortably. Suddenly, Elsa realizes that she isn’t even wearing a jacket—she must be freezing in this cold. “Could I come in?” she asks. “Just for a couple minutes, and I can fill you in on what’s going on.”

“Of course,” Elsa says, perhaps a little bit too quickly. But Maren doesn’t remark on it as Elsa steps aside to allow her through the door. “Trust me, that I would _very_ much like to know.”

* * *

“Please,” Elsa mutters, her face buried so far into her hands she’s pretty sure she’s never coming back out, “please tell me you’re joking right now. She sent you a _letter_?”

“Would I joke about something like this?” From where she’s seated on the couch, Maren glances up at the coatrack—then seems to remember that she didn’t actually bring a jacket inside. “I was actually going to bring it along to show to you, but Gale was being super impatient and Ryder just couldn’t deal.”

“Did you hear that, Gale?” Elsa asks the cat, who is still curled up in her lap. “You made Maren leave her house without a coat.” Gale, predictably, mewls and gives Elsa an unreadable look, so she’s forced to abandon her conversation with the wind spirit and return to the matter at hand. “Did my sister even mention _how_ she got Gale to fly all the way out to Wisconsin? Without even speaking to her?”

“Nope,” Maren sighs. “Gale just— _appeared_ at Aunt Yelena’s last night, letter and all. Ryder was convinced it was some sort of elaborate prank.”

“I wish,” Elsa mutters. She’s going to murder her sister when she sees her next, unless Anna gives her a _very_ good reason not to. “‘No talking to Maren and Ryder’, I said. ‘No texting them, either.’ So what does she do? She up and fucking _kidnaps_ my cat to _send you a fucking letter_!”

“I—um, I hate to be the one to bring this up,” Maren says, “but it did sound like Gale volunteered for postal service duty.” Still in Elsa’s lap, Gale purrs in what she can only assume is agreement.

Elsa glares at both of them. “ _Not_ helping.”

“So that’s my side of things,” Maren says, folding her arms across her chest, “but now I’d kind of like to hear yours, Elsa.”

“What—my side of things?” Elsa frowns. “My side of things is about to involve a long conversation with my sister about the differences between the letter and the spirit of a promise.” At the word _spirit_ , Gale’s head perks up, and Elsa rolls her eyes. “Not you, silly.”

Maren gives her a level look, and suddenly Elsa has the feeling she’s talking about something much deeper. “Elsa, I’m asking why you felt the need to have her make that promise in the first place.”

Unable to take the intensity of Maren’s stare (and also kind of because looking her in the eyes makes Elsa’s breath hitch in a way that is _definitely_ not conducive to an actual conversation), Elsa looks away. “I—I knew you would worry,” she says quietly. And it’s the truth, if not the entirety of it. “I didn’t want that.”

“I would have worried because I _care_ about you, Elsa!” Maren purses her lips, opening and closing one of her hands as she stares off at a point somewhere to Elsa’s left. “Why . . .” she continues in a small voice, “why did you tell me they were coming in the first place?”

 _Why did you lie to me?_ is the question she’s really asking—and while she _has_ an answer to that, she’s not certain she can make herself say it. Elsa shuts her eyes, trying to will away the flush creeping across her face, but to no avail. 

She changes her mind about her sister—she won’t even have the chance to murder Anna, because Elsa will be dead of embarrasment long before they see each other again.

“Elsa?” Maren’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts, but it’s wrong—timid, almost. “Look, if you—I mean, if for some reason you want to be alone, I completely understand, But you don’t have to lie to me about it, okay? I know you’ve said you have a hard time opening up to people, but—I want you to be able to trust me.”

“I do trust you,” Elsa says quickly. “I—I didn’t mean to lie to you.”

Maren looks at her quizzically, tilting her head as if to say, _Then why?_ Suppressing a groan, Elsa wonders if one of the spirits would be willing to strike her down right this instant so she doesn’t have to face what’s coming. Unfortunately, none of them oblige her.

“I was just—um, panicking,” she says, stopping when Maren pulls back in alarm. “Wait, that’s—‘panicking’ is probably the wrong term to describe it,” she says quickly. “Not panicking. I wasn’t panicking, I was just—flustered?”

 _Excellent_ , she thinks dryly. One sentence in, and it’s going absolutely swimmingly.

Why is she even embarrassed about this? She ought to be able to talk about it, she thinks—talk about it and then laugh it off, just like any other normal person. Maren will understand; Elsa knows she will. Maren has _always_ been understanding. But Elsa has lived with the instinct to push her feelings down for far too long now . . .

_Conceal, don’t—_

_Shut_ up _, for God’s sake!_

There’s frost creeping up the walls, Elsa notices belatedly. With an effort, she dismisses the cold and forces herself to look at Maren, who seems to be waiting for a response to something she’s said.

“Um,” Elsa says. “Sorry, I—could you repeat that?”

Maren blinks. “Elsa,” she says slowly, “are you sure you’re okay? First you were panicking, and now—” She swallows. “I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable, all right? If me being around isn’t—isn’t helpful for you, then—”

“No!” Elsa says, jolting. Startled, Gale vanishes into wind form and hovers in front of Elsa, somehow managing to express an air of disapproval without even having a face. “No, I mean—I do want you here. Because you are helpful, really. Among—other things.”

The blush is back, but at this point, Elsa is sort of convinced it’s just going to be there permanently.

“Okay,” Maren says. She settles back into her seat, but she’s still frowning. “So why . . .” she gestures helplessly, “. . . you know?”

 _Whatever_ , Elsa thinks with a sigh. Might as well get it all out there, right? It’s not as if today can get any worse—though as soon as she thinks that, her mind immediately conjectures a half-dozen ways in which it could.

 _You’re not helping, either_ , she tells it, but unsurprisingly, it refuses to listen.

“Yes, um,” Elsa says. “About that. I . . .”

She can’t do it, she thinks. Elsa squeezes her eyes shut and tries to force the words out, but they won’t come. It’s as if her throat has dried up completely.

Thankfully, blessedly, Maren fills the silence before Elsa can start screaming and bolt. “It’s—it’s all right, Elsa,” she says, though it’s kind of obvious that it isn’t. “I know it must have been hard to be separated from Anna this year, and I understand if you needed to deal with that alone—”

“It wasn’t that,” Elsa blurts, because of course _now_ her mouth decides to catch up with her brain. “It’s—I—”

_Come on, seriously?_

“I was just agreeing with everything you were saying because you were holding my hand and my brain couldn’t handle the contact and I stopped being able to comprehend anything at all, okay?” Elsa manages to gasp, all in one breath. She risks a glance at Maren, and her heart drops into her chest when she sees _alarm_ in her friend’s face.

“Ah, shit,” Maren mutters, which is neither the reaction Elsa was hoping for nor the one she was expecting. _What?_ “I’m so sorry, Elsa, I just forgot—with you and touch and all—I didn’t mean—”

Elsa buries her face in her hands and chokes out a half-laugh, half sob.

“Elsa?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?” Elsa groans, refusing to look at Maren. “It’s not touch—well, not my usual issues with touch, anyway, because— _ugh_.” She chokes on her words again, but this time she’s determined to get it out. “Because I care about you too, all right? More than—more than I probably should. As in, more than . . . as in _something other_ than just a friend.”

There. She’s said it. No taking it back, no do-overs. She wants Maren to respond, to say something so that she knows it didn’t just happen in her head, but her friend is just staring at her in shock.

“Wait, _what_?” Maren says, trembling, which is about the reaction Elsa expected.

“Look,” Elsa says, trying to mask the rapidly-growing ache in the center of her chest, “I know you probably don’t—”

“Wait,” Maren interrupts her. She’s still shaking, except it’s not shock like Elsa assumed—is that _laughter_? “Wait, Elsa, _fuck_ , I—oh my God.”

Elsa stares blankly at her, unsure of how to respond. Waiting for Maren to collect herself seems to be the most prudent course of action, but now that the truth is out there, Elsa’s not sure she _can_ wait any longer.

“Elsa,” Maren says, taking a shaky breath. Elsa looks up, still unable to meet her gaze. “This is kind of a stupid question, I guess, but, um—you do realize I’ve been flirting with you for, like, the past six months, right?”

It’s Elsa’s turn to go catatonic from shock.

“ _Excuse me_?” she demands, but no more words follow. Elsa makes a strangled noise from somewhere deep in her throat, forcing herself to blink until she can manage a deeply confused, “ _What_?”

“Oh my God,” Maren groans, leaning back against the couch and squeezing her eyes shut. “Oh my God, you actually didn’t realize—this whole time, I’ve been— _fuck_. Elsa, I’ve been into you basically since the moment we met! Hell, half the time I thought you were flirting _back_!”

“You thought I’d been _what_?” Elsa squeaks.

“Elsa, I’ve literally fed the marshmallows out of my hot chocolate to you,” Maren says. She’s the one blushing now, which shouldn’t make Elsa feel any better about herself, but somehow it does. “I’ve accidentally said something completely over the top on at least three different occasions. I—” She rubs her cheeks with her hands and groans. “I can’t believe I’m saying this—I _showed you my imitation Greek statue collection from high school_. They were _nude_ , Elsa! Did you—you noticed that, right?”

“They were tasteful!” Elsa objects, though she doubts, all things considered, that Maren believes her. “Impressive replicas of classical artwork! You were showing me your art, how was I supposed to construe that as—as _flirting_?”

“Fucking hell,” Maren groans, burying her face in her hands. “This is—” She stops and shakes her head. “I mean, I guess that’s kind of a fair question,” she says slowly. “I don’t think I really knew what I was doing, either.”

Suddenly, Elsa feels exposed—like she’s done something, or really many things, that she probably shouldn’t have. “I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “If I’d noticed something, I—”

“No,” Maren says. “No, that’s on me, I shouldn’t have assumed. I . . . I just thought we were both having fun with all of it, I guess.”

Elsa’s heart nearly stops in her chest.

“I do have fun with you,” she insists, resisting the sudden urge to reach out and grab Maren’s hand. She needs to be functional right now, goddammit. “Just because I didn’t realize that you were—that _we_ were . . . I mean, I—” She swallows, forces herself to look at Maren. “I think I may have mentioned that I have a little bit of a thing for you?”

“So do I,” Maren breathes immediately. “For you, I mean—in case that wasn’t obvious.” For most people, Elsa supposes it probably was, but it’s immensely relieving to hear her confirm it. “We’re . . . kind of awful at this, aren’t we?”

Next to Elsa, Gale lets out a sharp _mrow_ that sounds suspiciously like agreement. “Maybe I am,” Elsa admits with a laugh, “but it seems like you’ve been trying your best not to be.”

“Yeah, and look how well _that_ went,” Maren grumbles, but there’s no heat in the statement. “So, um, does that—are we—”

“Stay for dinner?” Elsa blurts, before she can stop herself.

“What?”

“I was already cooking for three anyway,” she explains quickly. “Since I bought the turkey before I knew Anna wasn’t coming, and I figured I could just keep all of the leftovers. I did start cooking late, so dinner won’t be ready until nine or so, but if you’re already here—and if you want to, I mean—”

“I’d love to,” Maren says, cutting off her increasingly panicked rambling. She reaches out as if to grasp Elsa’s hand, then blinks and pulls back, the ghost of a smirk on her lips. “Elsa. Dinner sounds wonderful.”

* * *

It’s almost midnight before Maren is ready to head out, and with all the excitement of the evening (well, _excitement_ is probably not exactly the right word for it), Elsa forgets that she has a present under the tree for her until she’s pulling the front door open again. 

“Wait!” she says, pushing it closed and sending a blast of ice up the stairs toward her room. If she doesn’t remember exactly where she put the box, this is going to be a little embarrassing. “I know you don’t celebrate Christmas, but I, uh—I have something for you anyway.”

“Well, now I feel all unprepared,” Maren grins, watching as a meticulously-wrapped box slides down the ice ramp that Elsa’s made of the stairs. “I have something for you too, for solstice, but Gale didn’t give me time to grab it.”

“Of course not,” Elsa laughs, smiling fondly at the swirl of wind hovering above their heads. “I’m willing to forgive her, though.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see how I’m feeling after I make the run to my car through the subzero-degree weather out there.” Maren picks up the box and turns it over in her hands, then looks back up at Elsa. “Can I open this now?”

Elsa grins. “Go ahead,” she says, drinking in the way Maren’s eyes sparkle as she tears off the paper. Inside it is a plush reindeer with a silver name tag, accompanied by a stiff manilla folder.

Maren meets her eyes, and Elsa wonders how she ever could have missed the sheer amount of adoration that runs through them. “Seriously?” Maren breathes, her voice tinged with wonder and also a hint of amusement.

“Her name is Ava,” Elsa says, gesturing to the folder, “and the ‘adoption’ papers are in there, along with all of the photos I could find. I know you said that there are more important causes out there, but I just thought—if this is something you’ve always wanted, then—”

“It’s wonderful,” Maren interrupts her, wrapping Elsa up in the tightest hug she’s experienced in her life. (Which is quite an accomplishment, considering that the other two people closest to her are Anna and Kristoff.) “It’s—seriously, Elsa, I mentioned this, like, _once_. For maybe two minutes. And you still remembered.”

Honestly, Elsa isn’t sure she’s capable of forgetting anything that Maren says, period. She returns the hug, drinking in Maren’s presence and barely cognisant of the fact that she’s not entirely sure she can breathe—but eventually, a loud chirp from beneath them gives them cause to separate.

As soon as they do, Bruni leaps up off the floor and lands on Elsa’s shoulder. His fiery Santa hat still smolders on his head, which makes him a _tiny_ bit more intimidating when he narrows his too-large eyes at Maren and growls a warning.

“She’s not going to hurt me, Bruni,” Elsa murmurs, stroking the salamander’s back. Bruni chirps, turning his glare on Elsa. “I can handle not breathing for a few minutes, silly.”

Bruni rolls his eyes and spins in a circle before settling down on Elsa’s shoulder. Smiling at him, Elsa almost misses Maren demand, “I’m sorry, what?”

“No, no, you’re fine!” Elsa assures her. “I was fine. More than fine, actually—”

“You don’t need to _breathe_?”

“Oh.” Elsa blinks. “Not . . . as often as normal people do, I think?”

Maren gives a rueful laugh and shakes her head. “Every time I think I’ve got you all figured out,” she mutters with a grin. “Every time.”

“Well,” Elsa laughs, “I’m full of surprises, as you very well know.”

“Oh, I’m _quite_ aware of that.” Maren glances down at the box in her hands, and somehow, her gaze softens even further. “Thank you, Elsa. For this, and for—for putting up with all of, well, _me_.”

“I think you’re the one who deserves the thanks there,” Elsa says. “I’ve been a bit of a mess lately. Especially when it comes to . . . well, you.”

“Yeah?” Maren raises an eyebrow. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Now that she knows what to look for, Elsa is _pretty_ sure this is the sort of thing that qualifies as flirting—but she decides not to spoil the moment by asking. She’ll have plenty of time to do that later, she figures. 

“Don’t worry,” she says instead, reaching out to take Maren’s hand. “Honestly, neither would I.”

And if Maren doesn’t get out the door for another ten minutes because Elsa doesn’t want to let go, well, that’s between the two of them.

Though maybe— _maybe_ , if she grovels enough—Anna will manage to earn enough of Elsa’s forgiveness to pull a couple of the smaller details out of her. 

It’s Christmas, after all. What better time is there to forgive?

* * *

_Fin._


End file.
